


Here Be Monsters

by alltheshinywords



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:44:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4451702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheshinywords/pseuds/alltheshinywords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The surviving Stark children compare notes about the beasts they’ve encountered along their journeys. Originally posted on Tumblr in the Game of Ships challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Be Monsters

“White walkers,” said Jon. “Coming straight at you. Knowing they can’t be killed. Wanting nothing more than for you to join them.”

 

Gendry stared deep into the fire’s embers. “A man killed in every way possible who came back each time without a scratch.”

 

“Shadow creatures,” Rickon spoke up, picking at the toe of his boot with his pocketknife.

 

“Shadow creatures?” Arya tried to prompt him. It was rare for Rickon to speak at all these days. Perhaps with the right encouragement...

 

But he only shook his head and withdrew back into himself.

           

Bran thought over it a long moment. “I saw my fair share of wights and wargs and the undead. Lived inside a tree for a bit—that was odd. But I suppose for me it would have to be seeing into the mind of a wolf, and realizing just how inhuman I could be.”

 

Around the fire, Rickon, Jon, and Arya all nodded their agreement. It was a powerfully strange thing, slipping into the mind of a direwolf.

 

            Of all the Starks, only Sansa remained silent. Lady had died before she ever had a chance to make such a connection, Arya knew. It must be such a terribly lonely thing—and yet a part of her could not help but feel a shoot of satisfaction, however small.

 

_See_ , she wanted to say to her bastard-brother-turned-bastard-cousin. _She’ll never understand._

She glanced sidelong at Jon to see if he, too, had taken note of Sansa’s silence. And of course he had. He was Jon. He noticed everything.

 

“And you, Arya?” Bran spoke up, drawing his sister from her thoughts. “You wouldn’t have brought up the topic if you weren’t itching to tell us a tale about some ungodly thing.”

 

A slow smile stretched its way across her lips. “Have you ever heard of blood drinkers?”

 

Gendry groaned. “Rubbish. Those are only septon’s tales, told to frighten us poor, heathen peasants, keep us in line.”

 

Arya glared at him, all the mood from the dark night and the crackling fire now effectively spoiled. “It is not rubbish. And they aren’t just tales. I’ve seen them with my own eyes.”

 

That got the attention she’d been wanting. She felt Sansa’s eyes fast on her; Jon shifted a little. “You’re having us on.”

 

“Teeth like fangs, eyes like death.” Arya shivered at the memory. “I’ve seen one. Seen it hunt. Seen it kill.”

 

And, taking in a deep breath, she began.

 

 

#

 

            It was in Braavos, late at night. I was chasing a cat—

 

            ( _“Why on earth were you chasing a cat?” Gendry interjected incredulously._

_Insufferable boy; he was forever interrupting her. “Am I telling the story or are you, you muck-faced boar?”)_

 

            —when I took a turn down a dark alley—

 

            ( _“I thought you said it was night?”_

_“So?”_

_“So… if it was night, weren’t all the alleys dark?”_

_She clobbered his arm, hard.)_

 

            I had clearly taken a wrong turn. Have you ever gone into a place that felt as if all the air had been sucked from it? That was what it felt like there. It was as quiet as death, not a scuffle, not a clatter. I had just turned to leave again when I saw it.

 

            ( _“Saw what?”_

_Arya almost snapped back, until she realized it was Rickon who had spoken—almost against his will, it seemed, so drawn in was he by the tale. Her face softened._

_“The body.”)_

 

            It was a lady, gut slashed open, her innards spilling out around her. Blood caked on her skin. Eyes frozen open in horror.

 

            And above her, so dark and phantom-like I hadn’t even seen it in the shadows—a man.

 

            His jaws were clamped around her throat, like a dog tearing into a meaty bone. She was just hanging from him, limp as one of Nan’s old rag dolls—

 

            ( _Sansa made a small, muted sound in the back of her throat, and Jon reached out to her. It was only a small touch, his fingers barely grazing her shoulder, but Arya could not help but stare.)_

 

            For a moment, he was frozen. I was frozen. Both of us just staring at one another. And then he started undulating, pumping out what was left of her blood. Slurping up every last drop.

 

            ( _“What did you do?” asked Bran, and he no longer sounded like the too-tall young man with the too-deep voice who’d showed up out of the blue at their door, spit up from the forest, but the boy that had once leaped over turrets and scaled Winterfell’s walls so long ago.)_

I ran.

 

            I’m very quick, you know, and anyway he was so caught up in his meal I doubt he would have given chase. Still, I didn’t stop ‘til I was safe in my room again with the door bolted behind me. I thought then that was the end of it.

 

            A few days passed, and once again I came home late at night.

 

            ( _“Out chasing cats again, were we?”)_

 

            All day I’d had the feeling someone was watching me, but I told myself it was foolish fancy. It was even worse with everyone else asleep and the halls filled with echoes. I was jumping at every shadow, hearing things that weren’t there. So I decided the best thing to do would be to sleep it off.

 

            I went into my chamber and changed into my nightclothes, then stepped out into the corridor so I could go up to the roof and put some milk out. Only, as I left my room, I felt stronger than ever that someone was watching me. Just as I was convincing myself it was only my imagination, I realized that all the torches had been put out, except for a single candle still burning at the end of the hall.

 

            And as I watched on, a hand reached out from the shadows and snuffed the flame.

 

            I barely managed to make it back into my room and bar the door when something slammed against it from the other side. Bang. _Bang_. He was throwing his full force against it, whoever he was, and he was strong. I heard the knob rattle as someone tried to turn it from the other side. Heard his nails, sharp as talons, dragging across the wood.

 

            ‘Arya,’ he whispered through the door. ‘Arya Stark. I know your true name. I’ve tasted your scent. Open up. Open the door.’

 

            ( _“And did you?”_

_That earned Gendry a shove to the arm. “Do I look brain-addled to you? Of course I didn’t open the bloody door.”_

_Jon leaned forward, hands resting on his knees. “So what did you do?”)_

I waited. All night. I waited, scarcely taking my eyes from the door. Every so often, I could hear him scratching at the keyhole, whispering my name. But it didn’t budge, and neither did I.

 

            And in the morning, he was gone.

 

 

#

 

            Arya sat back, eyes flitting about the group to see how her tale had settled. “I never saw him again. But sometimes, I wonder… He sniffed out my blood once; who’s to say he won’t do it again? Who’s to say he isn’t here now, lurking in the shadows?”

 

            As everyone listened on in breath-baited horror, Arya made an abrupt lunge at Sansa, who shrieked and then pushed her away. Her cheeks were high-colored with embarrassment, eyes darting to Jon and then back again. “Arya, you liar. I know you made up the whole thing.”

 

            “I did not! It’s true, every word of it.” Arya paused, licking her lips, and could not help but add, “But what would you know about beasts and monsters?”

 

            “Arya,” Jon said quietly.

 

                Gendry’s foot slipped out, prodding against her calf—such a small movement that no one else would have noticed.

 

She ignored them both. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’ve stayed quiet all this while. Tell me, _Lady Sansa_ , how many shadowmen did you encounter in King’s Landing? How many wights came bursting into your fortress in the Vale?”

 

            The room had fallen silent once more. All eyes were on Sansa as stared down at her hands.

 

            “You’re right, Arya. I was locked up safe in a tower. I never saw creatures with glowing eyes or fangs. My monsters were not blue of skin or formed of shadow. They were ordinary men and women, just like you and me. And their eyes were oh so human as they ripped me apart for their pleasure.”

 

            She rose to her feet, hands balling around the fabric of her dress. “It’s late,” she murmured, still not looking up as she slipped from the room.

 

            Feeling a cold, heavy lump in her throat, Arya watched after her and swallowed.

 

 

#

 

            “She’s too sensitive, as always,” Arya groused to Jon as they walked through the woods the next morning. She used the switch in her hand to attack the tall grass with vigor. “I didn’t mean to upset her.”

 

            Once Jon might have laughed with her, or at least shook his head with sympathy. How often had he done so in the past when she came to him, complaining about Sansa? Now his face was grim. “Really? Because it seems to me you did.”

 

            She stopped in her tracks, gaping. “What do you mean?”

 

            “I think you meant to upset her. I think you’re punishing her for something, though I haven’t pieced together what.”

 

            Arya blinked, hard, and stared straight ahead. She had never put it into words, what she was feeling, but she supposed she was punishing Sansa. She’d always liked to ruffle her perfect, pretty sister’s feathers, but she’d been genuinely glad to see her again, whole and healthy and safe. There had been laughter and embracing and tears—things she’d no longer known she was capable of after the House of Black and White, and the death of Gregor Clegane at her hands. She’d seen the hollow, empty look that sometimes came across Sansa’s face and thought for the first time she and her sister might be able to understand one another. That they might even be friends.

 

            Until she saw the way Jon looked at her.

 

            It had been as shocking to her as anyone to learn that Jon was not their father’s bastard son after all, but their cousin. A Targaryen prince in his own right. Still, it hadn’t changed anything in her mind or in her heart about how she felt about him. He was her brother, as sure as Robb or Rickon or Bran. What a miracle it had been when the younger boys came home and all of them were together again, just like the old days.

 

            Only…it wasn’t the same. Arya had felt it niggling at her for a while, though she tried to convince herself it wasn’t true. Something was wrong. Something was different. But it wasn’t until Rickon’s name day that at last she pieced it together.

 

            Her youngest brother had returned silent and sullen from hiding. He hardly seemed to recognize any of them, and referred to Osha the wildling as his mother. Sansa had wanted to make his name day special for him, inviting fire swallowers and jugglers and all the people from the village, in the hopes he might forget his hardships, even for a few hours.

 

            A mistake, it soon proved to be. If there was anything Rickon feared more than the flames, it was the crowds. He locked himself in one of the turrets, refusing to come down. The rest of them took turns trying to coax him out, but Sansa would not leave. For two days, she stayed on the ground outside his door, and her quiet songs to the Mother could be heard drifting throughout the castle, a phantom voice with no body.

 

            The second night, as Arya climbed the stairs to take Sansa her evening meal, she heard voices drifting down the corridor. On instinct, she stopped to listen, peering around the corner to see Jon sitting on the ground beside her sister.

 

            “…my fault,” Sansa was saying. Her voice bore none of the theatrics it might have when they were children. She would have turned this into an event then, tears and lamenting, so people might know just how much she was suffering.

 

            But now, she only sounded tired. “He’ll come out when he’s ready. I know he will. Only, I don’t want him to be alone when he does. You know how he’s frightened of the dark.”

 

             “Then let me stay with him.” Jon’s voice was infinitely kind, his gray gaze trained on Sansa. “Just for the night. Go and get some sleep.” Anticipating her protest, he pressed on, “I won’t leave him. Not even for a moment.”

 

            Sansa wanted to fight it, Arya could see, but she just did not have it in her. “Promise?”

 

            “I promise.”

 

            After another long moment’s hesitation, Sansa at last rose to her feet. She swayed a little, her limbs uncoiling from two long days spent on the hard stone floor, and reached out a hand to steady herself on Jon’s shoulder. For a moment, they did not say anything, just looked at each other.

 

            “You’ll need a blanket,” Sansa said finally, releasing him and averting her gaze. “It’s cold up here.”

 

            “I don’t feel it.”

 

            She laughed a little, softly to herself. “That’s because fire runs in your veins.”

 

            For a moment, she raised her hand as if she meant to touch his face, but then it fell back to her side. “I’ll return in the morning.”

 

            Jon didn’t say anything after that, just watched as she disappeared down the other end of the corridor. And perhaps his gaze was made of fire, too, for it burned as it followed her, longing wafting in the air as pungent as smoke.

 

#

 

            “I wish you would forgive Sansa, whatever it is you think she’s done,” Jon continued now as they stood overlooking the river. “She isn’t as strong as she pretends to be. She needs you more than she’ll ever say.”

 

            “It isn’t her I’m angry with,” Arya realized aloud. “It’s you.”

 

            He looked at her, a perplexed ridge forming on his brow. “With me…?”

 

            Tears stung at her eyes—irritating, pointless, but there all the same. She blinked them back. “Why did you have to ruin everything?”

 

            Understanding flashed in his eyes, though he masked it quickly. “I don’t know what you…” But he had never been very good at lying, Jon Snow. He fell silent, staring out at the river.

 

            Arya shook her head. “We finally found each other again—all of us. Why can’t things just be like they were before?”

 

            “None of us is the same as we were before, Arya. You know that.”

 

            Yes, she’d sensed that shift, too, from almost the moment she’d seen him again, deny it as she might. When they’d parted last, she’d been a little girl, and he’d been her hero. She was a woman now who had learned to slip out of her own body and change her face. Who’d slit throats and sliced bellies with her very hand. She loved him as much as she ever had—perhaps more now, that she realized how precious such a thing was—but now that she could meet him eye to eye, she saw it was a human looking back at her and not a god as she had always secretly believed.

 

            Jon took in a deep breath that sounded almost painful. “I’ll never act on it, you know. Not if it would hurt you or Rickon or Bran.”

 

            Arya looked up at him, knowing it to be true. Jon might have been raised from the dead, reborn a Dragon Prince, but underneath it all he was all Ned Stark. Selfishness was not a flavor he knew the taste of. It was beyond him to seize something simply because it would bring him joy. Doubtless, he had convinced himself that Sansa did not feel the same way, that it was only himself he would be denying, though even after all these years Arya knew her sister well enough to understand that wasn’t the case. Jon’s tell might be in the way he looked at Sansa, but Sansa’s was in the way she _would not_ look at him.

 

            And Arya had seen enough of monsters in her time to know that was what she would become in keeping them apart.

 

            “I don’t want to see it, and I don’t want to hear about it,” she said at long last. “If Sansa wants to whisper secrets and braid hair, tell her to go find Gendry. And for goodness sake, make sure the kitchens stock up on moon tea. I won’t be running any errands into the village, thank you very much.”

 

            The tips of Jon’s ears pinkened, a slow crimson flush rising up his neck. “I don’t think—”

 

            Arya leveled a finger at him, her gaze no-nonsense. “And use your room. Hers are right next to mine, you know. And I’ve had about all that I can take of things that go bump in the night.”

 

            And with that, she sliced a path back to the house, leaving Jon to blush like a maiden in her wake.

 


End file.
